Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

Jul 3 2008

Stop Wasting Your ALT Attributes and Make them Work for You

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When providing SEO advice on the topic of website design, we often warn against placing important content into images. This is because search engines can’t read images like a person can. To them, an image with text is just an image. They really have no idea what the image is or if, in fact, it says anything at all. So when optimizing sites, anytime we are dealing with keyword optimized content, we want to make sure it’s standard HTML text. This includes headers, benefit lits, and even normal body copy.

While the search engines can’t read actual images, they can read what we say about the image. This information can be gleaned a few different ways:

  • Image file name (image1234.jpg vs. mustang-gt.jpg)
  • Text immediately surrounding the image
  • The overall content of the page the image is on
  • Image ALT attribute in the image tag

When trying to optimize images for image search, all of these can provide important indicators the search engines use to produce the best set of image results. In terms of traditional optimization and website usability, the ALT attribute plays an important role.

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Jun 27 2008

Social Media Team Reading List 6.27.08

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Jun 26 2008

SEO Team Reading List 6.26.08

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Jun 25 2008

Copywriting Team Reading List 6.25.08

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Jun 23 2008

So I Hear There’s A Rodeo. How did I Not Know About This?

Reno Rodeo LogoEvery year Reno puts on a rodeo event. I know this, not because I live here, but because every year approximately one person asks me, “are you going to the rodeo?”

Now granted I’m not a rodeo fan, but how is it that I don’t ever know about this event, save for the lone person asking me if I’m going? Is anybody even advertising this thing?

Ok, so I may not be the average consumer. I don’t watch commercials (thank you, TiVO!); I listen to commercial-free satellite radio or my ipod exclusively (thank you, XM and apple); I get all my news from the internet (thank you, Al Gore), rarely hitting local news sites; and I don’t get out much (thank you, blu-ray.) So it got me thinking….

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Jun 23 2008

May 2008 Search Engine Market Share | Nielsen // NetRatings

Nielsen // NetRatings May 2008 Search Engine Market Share

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Jun 20 2008

May 2008 Search Engine Market Share | ComScore

ComScore March 2008 Search Engine Market Share

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Jun 20 2008

Is Netflix Still A Customer-Service Business?

I’ve been a Netflix subscriber since they went by the name Netflix.com and were boasting 7,000 titles in stock. They now claim to have over 100,000. That was many moons ago. But I haven’t necessarily been a Netflix loyalist. Over the years I’ve tried other online movie rental services only to keep finding my way back to Netflix.

But over the years Netflix has begun cutting out key customer features. They say it’s to improve their system, customer service and the traditional yada, yada, but I’m not so sure. But with each feature they eliminate, instead of differentiating themselves from the competition, they are systematically eliminating the benefits of being a Netflix customer.

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Jun 19 2008

SEO Team Reading List 6.19.08

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Jun 18 2008

An Absolute Pointless Custom 404-Error Page

The general purpose of having a custom 404-error page is to keep your visitors on your site if they find themselves having clicked on a broken link. Why go through the trouble to create the customize page if it doesn’t even fulfill this basic purpose?

I recently ran across a custom 404 page that did everything but what it should.

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